


to me evergreen

by orphan_account



Category: Unus Annus - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anachronistic, Angst, Body Horror, Descriptions of Injury, Domestic, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Mythical Creature Ethan Nestor, Pianist Mark Fischbach, Resolved Romantic Tension, Scents & Smells, Sharing a Bed, Snapshots, Unreliable Narrator, also both of them!, ambiguous time period, but just know, dark content, ethan is dangerous and mark is a little bit in love, i probably make up words just don't worry about it, purposefully vague mythical creature, really they both are a little bit in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:53:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23641897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "You'll die, Mark. I'll end up killing you.""And then you'll bury me in the snow."
Relationships: Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 18
Kudos: 102





	to me evergreen

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning!! This is tagged morally ambiguous character, horror, and graphic depictions of violence for a reason!! There's a part in this that gets super fucked up, I'm telling you right now it is not fun. HOWEVER most of the fic I think is fairly sad and sweet, so if you could suspend your disbelief for the darker aspects then I will appreciate you forever
> 
> Anyways. So. I wanted to write this fic where the creature/monster that Ethan is slowly gets more and more hinted at, mostly just because it's more fun to keep the reader guessing than to just come outright and say it, which is why it will remain untagged! But I couldn't keep it vague the whole time thanks to the story beats, so hopefully I wrote this well enough that you'll have it figured out before it gets to that point (there's an extra cw down in the end notes that will give it away immediately though)
> 
> Also it's not explicitly stated where this is set, but just know they're living in upstate ny, way up in the mountains
> 
> The title comes from Ricky Montgomery's [Snow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kayj98_TLg), which gave me so many lyrics as inspiration. Interestingly enough, at least to me, while this fic is entirely in Ethan's pov, the song is basically this fic but in Mark's pov, so you get both of them! Kinda..
> 
> Also, going into this, just know that my word choices are always very, very calculated. I use these words for a reason.
> 
> Anyways too many notes but I needed you to know!!

Ethan stands in front of a house. It has two stories and dingy white paint cracked and peeling in long strips across the clapboard siding. The trees that grow close lean their branches low to shy against roof and chimney alike, the unkept thickets of weeds and grasses curl up against the foundation and completely envelop the front steps in an anchor to the earth, an attempt for the forest to take back the half lived in structure. There’s a porch, covered with a roof that’s dipping low with age; a pair of curved sitting chairs rest to the left of the screen door which guards the interior dark beyond the yawn. One of the slatted shutters twitches in the wind that burns his skin, hanging on by a single rusted hinge and steadily edging outward to point at him, a silent beckon. Upstairs, in the far window, a light is on. A sharp golden square against the slowly growing morning grey.

It’s quiet. The surrounding woods still filled with midnight shadows encroach upon the scene and effortlessly mute the world around him. He’s come from the meandering road set a mile back down the mountainside, yet any sound that could be fighting to filter up from early travelers is swallowed in the leaves. He hears only the faint creak and cry of the wooden house and the ringing that accompanies the dawn.

Another trail of warmth slides its gentle way down his forearm. It converges with the others at his palm and drips heavy off limp fingertips onto the gravel drive underneath his feet, bare and blackened with dirt. Ethan smears the red from his hand across his chin and mouth and tongue, and breathes raggedly. He coughs not on the bright taste but with the way his lungs rattle with each inhale. His side spikes in the pain of earlier and he can’t help but to drop his hand down to the skin there. An open slash across the ribs, his fingers search and find heat and muscle and the solid shape of bone, and the thin flaps of torn skin slide between the gaps and flutter with the motion.

A silhouette moves behind the glass upstairs, the light against the grass obscured for a moment long enough to catch his attention, and Ethan exhales sharply in relief when he looks up and recognizes the shape. It’s a drop in tension, the kind that’s kept him upright during the change, and his shoulders slump while his legs buckle underneath him. His knees meet the ground. Vision blurring, it’s suddenly a task too difficult to keep his eyes open. Ethan begins to fall forward unconsciously and only the last shred of adrenaline in his system shocks him into reaching out and grappling at the sand and sharp rock with the hand not covered in the slick of blood. It helps, if only for a second, a second before his arm shakes and his elbow quivers against his weight and Ethan finds himself gasping into the earth and tasting more than iron. The darkness is a welcome when he winces and clenches his eyes shut, and in the time he stays still on the ground his breathing tightens, chest barely rising and falling in the small space between himself and the dirt. He lies there long enough to feel all the sense of fight drain out of him, bringing in its absence an exhaustion he cannot help but succumb to.

Through something of a sick and sadistic universal eye, Ethan remembers the nights he does not spend inside. They’re an occasional treat, spaced across days or weeks depending on the needs of his body, and in the seemingly endless years of his past he can bring to mind every single hunt. Perhaps it’s bold to claim that nothing is lost to time, that he remembers each detail; Ethan might not be able to picture the faces of the dead and what they wore and which words they made their last—not the ones that haunt him from decades long gone—but the recent years are ripe, and he will never forget the sweet smell that floods his senses and calms him down. It’s inaccurate to act as if the terror and satisfaction of those midnight hours would fade to oblivion merely by the amount he holds behind his teeth.

On this early November morning with a mattress at his back and a fan lazily turning overhead, the scattered messy images come to him in pieces. He groans in the wake of them.

“Good morning,” a voice to his left says.

Ethan glances away from the popcorn ceiling to Mark stood at the bedside table and focused on tidying the mess crammed atop it; there’s a shallow basin of water, flannels, a spool of fishing line, shears and a needle, all having clearly been used. The flannels are damp and wadded, the spool half-unraveled. The water is a grimy reddish brown, and Mark shakes droplets of it off into the bowl before he grabs the fresh towel from over his shoulder to dry all the way up to his elbows with. The man has deep bags under his eyes and a frown etched into every line of his shadowed face. He still has on his bedclothes, a wrinkled white cotton shirt with the neck pulled too thin and pants loose with holes in the cuffs.

“Morning,” says Ethan in a grumble, wiping at his eyes. The curtains over the window are drawn, the light filtering in nice and bright. “What time is it?”

“You know you worried me this morning,” Mark says as he backtracks to the dresser pressed against the opposite wall, where Ethan can just make out the round brass pocket watch sitting on the corner. “It’s nearly nine. You showed up a lot later than normal.” There’s a question hiding none too subtly in that statement, saddled greatly with concern.

“I was kind of preoccupied,” he scoffs and attempts to push himself up.

Mark strides over in a rush and extends supportive hands, fluffing the pillows against the headboard and helping Ethan to rest back into them. Moving in such a way pulls at his wound but Ethan bites back the hiss and clenches his jaw instead, muttering out a thanks. He braces himself for the sight before examining his bare chest, now cleaned of the dirt and gravel and blood, now stitched up with the fishing wire clear and keeping his jagged skin closed. The long gash, starting from just below his underarm and cutting down to the fair end of his ribcage, is an ugly mark. Red and raised, blood already congealing on the edges. Evidence of his focus lost in the worst second.

“Ethan,” Mark takes a seat on the lip of the bed beside him. Ethan can feel his warmth through the bedcovers, the back of a hand against his leg, and he meets a distressed stare he doesn’t want to look away from. “What happened this time?”

“I thought you didn’t need to know.”

Mark sucks his teeth, the  _ tsk _ loud like a shrug. “I know I don’t usually ask, but god, I haven’t seen you look” —he gestures to Ethan’s marred chest— “this bad in a damn long time. Humor me?”

It has been quite a while since Mark has been curious enough to ask Ethan these same words. Last autumn, if he remembers correctly, the morning he had crawled back to the house with half his face and shoulder and his entire left arm covered in charred, blistering burns. It had taken too long to recover from those, what with each time he went out to the forest only causing the healing scabs to break and tear. Ethan’s sure those weeks were some of the hardest on Mark, if the way he almost religiously kept by Ethan’s side during the days was any signifier. Over the four years that Ethan has kept under this roof he has learned that Mark only tends to sate his curiosities over such hunts when Ethan comes by traumatic harm. An offhanded comment one night betrayed the truth—that while most of it comes from Mark wanting to know if everything is truly as bad as it looks, he also gets an unnatural enjoyment from listening to the stories of the nighttime hunts.

Ethan understands, and who is he to hide everything from his lovely, welcoming host. Ethan understands, so he humors him.

“There were three of them, camping a ways off one of the emptier trails. Deer hunters, it looked like, they had all the right equipment for it. Anyway, I wasn’t paying attention and one of them was close to their carving knives.” Ethan shrugs. “He was surprisingly fast with it.” It’s the shortened version, the cleanest one, simmered down for Mark to hear. He’d like to avoid any unnecessary hauntings so early in the day.

The deep laugh is expected, and Ethan can’t help but grin hearing it. He thinks it must have been a rough morning for Mark, one he can’t imagine outside of his being unconscious the entire time, and hopes that the laugh is the start of him beginning to relax again.

Mark runs a hand through his hair still mussed from sleep and shakes his head minutely. “Well,” he says, “they were kinda in the wrong there. It isn’t even hunting season.”

Ethan is never too sure what to make of the nonchalance Mark has in his presence. He remembers previous friends whose fear he could smell the second they caught sight of him, the ones where he felt that with every step he took they would flinch, just waiting for him to turn on them. However he would be lying if he claimed that living with Mark isn’t a refreshing change of pace. Better to hear amused remarks over nervous rattles. So, Ethan stretches and laughs himself, letting any lingering stresses roll off him, and says, “Yeah, I think they paid for it.”

His room is cold by the time Ethan dog-ears the novel he’s read countless times and sets it on the blankets beside him. Outside the window the midday sun flights down on what he can see of the treetops and the wind has picked up in the lingering freeze. There’s the threat of ice on the glass. Ethan calls back down the stairs, “No, I’m okay!” and reaches under the covers to press inquisitive fingers to the bandages tight around his chest.

Before Mark had left him to quietly rest he had insisted on wrapping the stitches, no matter how much Ethan attempted to persuade the both of them that he felt fine enough without the gauze. It had hurt, the fabric clinging to the injury and pulling strings loose every time he tried adjusting it. Only with the time he’s spent lying back has the pain thinned to a tolerable level. All he finds now is a deep throbbing ache that fades once he releases the pressure he holds against the gash. Like a bruise he compares it to, when he can’t seem to quit pushing down and feeling that same sting.

Confident, Ethan tosses his legs over the side of the bed and stands with the soles of his feet flat atop the wooden floor. It’s freezing, and he sucks in a breath between his teeth at the sudden loss of warmth from his mattress. The pocket watch is gone from the dresser when he digs through its contents for something to clothe himself with, something loose to fall over sensitive skin. A sweater and flannel pants, both with faded colors and holes in the joints. Mark needs to pick up fabric, it’s near winter and their clothes are fit for none of the storms.

The house is still, and if Ethan couldn’t hear the slight sound of a pen against paper he’d think maybe Mark went out back. He drops down the stairs, purposely tapping along the railing as he does so.

“Hungry?”

Mark is at the table scratching notes onto blank sheet music when Ethan rounds the corner into the kitchen, and the man glances up from his work to smile. He looks better, smells like he washed up—soap instead of blood, contentment instead of sweat and worry. It’s a tempting scent, one that lures images of climbing back into bed just to sleep again, and perhaps dragging Mark up with him. Ethan clears his throat and forces himself to focus on the conversation.

Under different circumstances he would take him up on the offer of a home-cooked meal, but here Ethan curls his lip and dissents interest. The thought of eating anything else turns his stomach into knots. He doesn’t yet feel that empty.

“You know I’m not.”

Mark frowns. “You got hurt, didn’t know if you had a chance to really… um, finish the job.”

The way he words it has Ethan shaking his head with a breathy laugh, almost exasperated. “What’d you make?”

“What, you can’t smell it?”

A flush rises unbidden to his cheeks. He hadn’t paid much attention to anything but the man in front of him, and from the wry bemusement on his face Mark seems to know that. “It’s stew,” he says helpfully. “In the fridge if you want any, bottom shelf.”

“Thanks. Maybe I’ll have some in a few days, if I get hungry enough.”

Ethan joins him at the table, taking the only other chair and falling down into it, stretching his legs out into the space between them. He gets a playful kick to his shin in return that quickly devolves into a childish game of footsie, too competitive to do anything but bruise each other, before it calms to a steady press of an ankle against his own. Mark has on thin socks.

During these colder months there isn’t much for him to do to pass the time. The snow—beautiful and a perfect setting for soft footfalls and preserving a catch—keeps him inside while he’s in this vulnerable form, and Ethan grows bored with the severe lack of entertainment they have sequestered up in this house. Therefore too often he’s left studying his host.

He’s never met someone who knew how to make music before, not even in his prior life. There was a neighbor, younger than him by half a decade and a sibling to a classmate he had during his schooling years, who was an apprentice pianist, but they could only play if they had notes to follow. Ethan finds it fascinating that Mark can take a blank sheet filled only with staff lines and create something with a melody.

Mark hums faintly, a little off key as his voice breaks, over and over a certain part of this new piece, pausing between rounds as Ethan assumes he’s stuck on how to go from there. Right hand tapping the end of the pen against his mouth, left miming the movement of his fingers on the black and white keys. Ethan watches him until he starts growing obviously frustrated, then nudges him lightly with his foot.

Mark doesn’t say anything, barely even acknowledges that Ethan grabbed his attention, but the frown slips easily off his face and just a few expectant moments pass before he draws the ink to paper once more.

Ethan stands from his place in front of the fireplace. The living room is not yet warm, but it’s better in the close evening than the stale air of before. He wipes his palms on the seat of his pants.

“Oh, do you hear that?”

He turns.

From the corner of the room, one hand hovering over the keys, Mark stands at the piano. It’s an old instrument, worn and loved, and the bench in front of it always squeaks when sat on. Dark wood and dust on the strings inside its hollow body, it still sounds perfect. Mark tries a few of the keys, the high notes at the very end of the spine, and declares, “The start of my new masterpiece.”

Ethan snickers, definitely not taking the man seriously despite how much Mark tries to school his face into a stoic, haughty mask. “You already finished it?” he asks.

Mark doesn’t look too sure. “Uhh…” and he laughs to himself. “Not exactly? I have— most of it.  _ Most _ of it, all but the end.”

“The end’s the most important part, Mark.”

“Well, you know,” he sits down on the bench to play. It squeaks loudly. “I have a feeling that it’ll come to me as I practice this.” He tests the scales as he speaks, middle range. Ethan steps closer to watch.

He leans against the top of the piano, forearms flat on the glossy wood and hands clasped together. He says, too honest, “I’d love to hear it.”

Mark is not a novice pianist, but he has a habit of being rusty on a new piece. The first play of the song goes haltingly, almost jarring in the stops and starts of what is supposed to be a clean flow of music. He looks calm, though, when he starts again, smoother this time. Stretching fingers and shaking his hands out and lighting the beginning low notes with a concentration that dulls the outside. Ethan could do anything short of adding in his own flirting melody and still he would not be able to break that focus.

It really is a beautiful piece. Soft and assured, safe, with dips of intensity that give Ethan this indescribable feeling of being in danger. It’s incredible.

When Mark stops short of the unfinished ending for a third time and sighs, Ethan prods the resounding silence with, “Is there a story?”

“There is,” Mark nods. “It’s about a mountain.” He starts playing again, slower, delicate. Enough for him to speak over the sound. “I write about relationships and… and people, you know, but there’s been something on my mind lately. And, um, well this song is still about a relationship, just a different kind. Between man,” he meets Ethan’s eye and something in his stomach flips, “and nature.”

The flickering orange and red from the fireplace drapes its touch over the two of them, and Mark’s eyes are near black in such low light. He looks safe, assured and intense. He looks like the music.

“As you listen, you can picture it. The subject, the man, he wants to—”

He stops playing again, abruptly, mouth half-open as if he caught himself with words on the tip of his tongue. “I’m getting ahead of myself,” he says under his breath, head dipped in what smells like embarrassment. “I should finish it first.”

“That might be best,” Ethan says despite how robbed he’d been of hearing whatever else Mark had meant to say, the rest of his story. He has a suspicion, though he doesn’t show it, keeping it until he can ask at a better time. Instead, he takes the opportunity to stand and curb the edge of the piano to join the man on the bench as well. It’s barely meant for two; Mark makes what little room for him that he can, and Ethan doesn’t hesitate to press their shoulders together, a heat more than the fire burning behind them. “Can you play your other one?” Surveillance?”

“What are you saying, this one isn’t good enough for you?” It’s a teasing accusation, there’s a giveaway grin on Mark’s face that he wants to know personally.

Ethan matches the mood. “Yes,” he says. “Exactly, I’m glad you understand now.”

It gets Mark to laugh, at least, and watching him toss his head back with eyes squinted shut almost lets Ethan believe he’ll have this forever. He pushes down the faint taste of sour disquiet bubbling up his throat.

“Well my good sir, I accept your request. This is Surveillance Of Quotations,” Mark fiddles with the keys again, an old, easy piece at his fingers, “played just for you.”

The snowstorm comes down overnight. Ethan has felt the stirrings in the air for two days now, the temperature dropping further and further and steadily freezing the hard-packed mountain ground. It’s early in the season for a blizzard, even a small loft that will leave the forest with the thinnest layer of snow, but it’s dark outside his bedroom window and the full moon lights upon the flakes coming down in thick flurries.

Few things remind him of his fleeted life, and as he grows immortally older the nostalgia rarely comes, but a heavy snowstorm has yet to pass without alerting some slight fear inside him. The thought, unnecessary and dumb, amusing even, of being caught in another storm tends to freeze him where he stands, no matter that Ethan lays curled in his bed with the lingering warmth of a downstairs chimney fire rising to the upper rooms. Still the images of that day wrap around his head and dance across his vision, the desperate actions of a young man’s last resort. It’s awful, a horror inside hisself, and he—

And he takes a breath, deep and measured, and puts himself back in his body. He shouldn’t fret. It’s been decades, and he can’t change anything anymore.

He had tried, once, in that first week when his mind had not yet come to terms with his new reality. Suffering in a form he was not accustomed to, catching the image of himself in a frozen lake and flinching at the monster he found staring back at him, feeling sick at the urge to  _ consume. _ He had tried to starve himself, wanted to wither away just to avoid hurting anyone else, but it hadn’t worked. Something took over him, something terrible, something primal, and saved him from what he knows now would not have been death but something so much worse. He used to call it possession, to distance himself from the responsibility, but he knows better.

There comes from down the hall another creak, bare feet on the floors. Mark has been up for some time now, pacing around his own room, heading downstairs and back up again after a few minutes. Ethan isn’t surprised when his door opens and orange candlelight from the lantern in Mark’s hand fills the room.

He props himself up on his elbows.

“Oh,” Mark says and stops halfway through the frame, caught between two ends. “Did I wake you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ethan shakes his head. “I would’ve woken up anyway. What time is it?” He doesn’t ask why Mark is awake, or why he decided to come see him.

“Um, probably four.”

They do this too often.

Mark’s skin is freezing when the man joins him under the blankets, he’s been out of bed for a while. Ethan inhales sharply through his teeth at the touch of cold feet, and Mark laughs in the low light. It’s a relief for both of them.

He extinguishes the lantern once he’s settled, and they find each other in the dark.

Ethan can see him clearly, Mark’s pupils blown to catch even the barest of outlines as he almost blindly reaches out for him, and a familiar fondness takes root behind his sternum. It makes it easy to guide Mark back to him, press themselves together and tighten the bedcovers around them. They face each other, Ethan can feel Mark’s breath on his chin and he has one knee crooked in between Mark’s legs, and he meets his eyes still adjusting.

“You’re warm.”

“I haven’t been walking around out there.”

Mark laughs short and unamused through his nose and closes his eyes, turning his face further into the pillow. “Thanks,” he says, and Ethan hums his acknowledgement.

He thinks now he’ll be able to turn back to the lull of sleep. It’s finally gone silent, both the house and his mind, and he has Mark to thank for each. He follows suit, nose pressing to cotton.

“You knew about this,” Mark says, far into the night when Ethan is just about asleep again. It takes him a minute to register he’s being spoken to, yet when he does Ethan makes a tired, confused sound and blinks his eyes open. Mark’s are still closed, face so relaxed in near-sleep, a luring sight. He sighs, “The storm.”

Another question suggested in those two words, one that Ethan knows Mark is waiting for him to take initiative with. He won’t, not now, not when he’s no longer slipping in and out of that tight-chested fear. Ethan slides his hand further down Mark’s back and sees the slight uptick of a grin on his lips. He stares too long there.

Mark knows the story. Raptly he had listened without a hint of disgust or terror showing on his face, rather interest and intrigue ran rampant, and it was then that Ethan began to understand just how little Mark cares for what he is. He thinks Mark might also know that Ethan no longer holds any guilt over what he’s done. In some sense of the word, he’s alive, alive only from the actions he took, and by the actions he continues to take. He has plenty reason, now, to stay that way.

During the time that Ethan decides on how he might else respond, Mark’s breathing has already evened out.

Ethan lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding and relaxes. The snowstorm continues behind them, and from over Mark’s shoulder he watches the flakes stick to the window, resting his eyes to blur his vision. He thinks back to that night again, frozen bodies of his friends under his hands and teeth, and tightens his hold on his bedmate.

He used to call it possession. He knows better now.

“I think we waited too long to take this out,” Mark says unhelpfully, over the sound of Ethan gritting his teeth and muffling pained groans into his fist clenched sore.

He bites into the thin skin of his knuckles, canines digging in and scraping against the bone roughly, but Ethan isn’t worried over mangling his own hand no matter how temporary. He needs something to distract him from watching the mess down at his chest.

The fishing line they used as a makeshift suture only the day before has already been grown over with new skin, muscle, tendons between the ribs. Only thin pieces of the wire haven’t yet been sealed completely, the bathroom light glinting off where it pokes out of him making it easy to see where the scar had been. Mark has a pair of old needle-nosed pliers in one hand while the other rests solidly against Ethan’s bare side, holding him steady with an upsetting grimace aimed at the line, and even through his distant focus Ethan can see the wet of tears in his companion’s eyes. He looks just as pained as Ethan feels to be threading the wire out through healthy skin.

Because it  _ hurts. _ Despite knowing he will recover from this quick, that in a handful of hours it won’t even be a thought in his mind, the effort drains him. To feel and to  _ hear _ the nauseating sound of his skin and connective tissues ripping and tearing with each pull is nightmarish.

Baring his teeth, Ethan grits out, “No fucking shit.” He gains a bit of satisfaction watching Mark glance to his mouth before averting his eyes.

At another outward slide of the stitching Ethan tightens his hold on the rim of the bathtub where he sits, faucet behind him running warm. Intermittently, Mark wrings out the rag and dips it back under fresh water. He has to keep soaking up the blood that pools out of the reopened lesion, thin rivulets of red escaping through the tear and settling along the waist of Ethan’s pants, seeping into the fabric. The smell is overwhelming, a sour metallic scent mixing with the proximity of a nervous, resolute body. He wants to lean forward and dip his nose into the clavicle across from him, but he can’t even  _ move. _

He wants to form a claw and slice through Mark’s stomach just to have that sweet smelling blood of another, and not his own, thick in the air.

Exhausted, he growls at his own thoughts and forces himself to breathe deep. He thinks maybe he’ll have to hunt again too soon, if wandering ideas of maiming this man have already started to show face again.

“You okay?”

“No.”

Mark immediately drops his hands from him, a relief but not what Ethan had meant to imply.

“No, that’s fine,” he waves it off, “I’m just starting to imagine what you look like when disemboweled.”

“Fucking hell,” Mark coughs over what sounds like a laugh, and his nerves spike. Ethan can hear the heartbeat so close to him. “You say some scary shit when you’re hungry.”

“Not hungry, it’s self-defense.”

Ethan is usually unconscious when Mark has to take on the task of sewing him up again, any homicidal reactions swallowed by his inability to wake. It’s a routine they do often, an early test of the trust each puts in the other, but for Mark to do this now, to cause inadvertent harm to him while Ethan sits raring to turn in honest daylight is an impressive act.

Mark looks up where he’s been kneeling on the hardtop linoleum beside the tub, interest caught at those words. His neck is bared and his eyes have gone a little dark, the tears still there. “Self-defense?” he asks, mindlessly wiping the wet rag down Ethan’s side. “God if that’s self-defense I would love to see what you’re like with… with actual intent.”

He swallows. “You can.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he says yet pulls on the fishing line harsh and quick, almost in a tease.

Oh, Ethan is a danger and Mark is testing him.

The pliers must lose their firm hold on the end of the wire, too slick with the bath water and thin diluted blood. The next tug catches on Ethan’s skin and the tool slips from its tight grip, jolting Ethan with a sharp spike. He hisses.

“Fuck, sorry,” Mark curses and startles back to the task before him. He flexes his hand and realigns the tool on the fishing wire, wrapping the slack around its metal nose. “There’s not much left, I’m gonna try and get it all out in this last one, okay? Really don’t want this to seal over again.”

Ethan nods.

“Please don’t bite my head off.”

It was a poor attempt at a distraction, but Ethan appreciates Mark. He laughs around a choked sob as the last of the fishing wire slips out, gasps with that final pull. Flecks of red spatter against the tile and Mark’s shirt, stained forever.

Mark goes to wipe him down again, but Ethan grabs his wrist before he can get very far, grinds his molars together in self-restraint. “Let me do it,” he says, and releases his grip enough for Mark to drop the damp rag into Ethan’s waiting hand. He’s sure, terribly, that if Mark tries to put his hands on him again, even if in the back of his mind Ethan knows that it would be to help, that this day will not end well. The very tips of his fingers are near-black with the threat of him turning. It will not be long now.

Mark has had time to become perceptive of the signs. He takes the hint, leaves Ethan in the bathroom with the promise to keep back just until he’s called. Just until he’s needed again.

Ethan is beginning to feel empty. A dull ache in his abdomen that is just slight enough for him to forget it’s there unless consciously focused on it. He’ll spring a headache in short intervals, more of a spike behind his temples than anything else, and fidget with his nails and teeth to keep them occupied. It’s a dance he’s done countless times before, an unwelcome familiarity that will grow rapid and violent in the coming hours.

This visit will be quick. Mark was correct in that Ethan hadn’t had enough time to properly feed, not between getting sliced open by a hunter’s knife and scrabbling back home before he bled out on the forest floor once he returned human again. He had woefully left parts of his prey behind, mangled and half-covered in leaves, a beggar’s meal. It certainly had not been the casual two or three trespassers that sustain him for a fortnight, no. His days of rest are already passing.

He warns Mark to check the shed out back, that he’ll need to clip some of the herbs soon. “Did you put the snow-guard up?”

Mark looks up from his book where he sits on the opposite end of the couch. He frowns, “Of course. I’ll have enough.”

“How many do you have?”

“Three,” Mark says. “Three that are healthy.”

Ethan stills. Three healthy lavender plants will absolutely not be enough for even the next month, let alone until spring. He says as much.

Something is off, especially with the way Mark doesn’t at all seem worried over the thought of running out of the one thing that can keep a turned Ethan at bay. He merely shrugs and says, “They’re dying faster this year, there’s not much I can do.”

“Then how do you expect—”

“It’s gonna be fine.” He sounds so sure despite how impossible the situation seems. Ethan keeps quiet, confused and concerned. Mark clears his throat loudly and asks, “So, you have a day left?”

“At least, yeah.”

There’s an entire railway system of thoughts winding their way through Mark’s head, he doesn’t care to hide it. Ethan can see it in the way he stares out in the middle distance of the living room floor, thumb mindlessly toying with the corner of a page while his lips part as if meaning to say something else. Ethan narrows his eyes slightly when Mark keeps quiet in the end, letting out a sigh that turns into a pensive hum instead and turning back to the book in his lap. He won’t ask, at least not now, but he senses a conversation soon coming. Ethan looks away before Mark can ask after his staring.

_ “—be a simple explanation. We have to assume it was a bear attack, there’s nothing else it really could have been.” _

The faintly static words give Ethan pause, interest piqued and ears perked. He’s been parsing through the local radio stations for the past hour, hoping he’d land on something other than the weather reports and popular, overplayed songs; he can sense the weather, and he’d rather listen to a piano played live. He lets go of the dial and turns the volume up, straightening in his chair.

_ “We’ve never seen wounds that big, though. I mean really, a bear? All we get here are black bears, they’re not really known for vicious attacks…” _

_ “It’s not uncommon to see a grizzly wander on down from Canada, though.” _

_ “Yeah, I guess, but— I don’t know.” _

Mark, folding clothes from across the room, looks over, his movements slowing. He has one of his white dress shirts in his hands, an assumption on his face. “Is this… are they talking about you?”

As the two radio hosts converse further on the possibilities of a wildlife attack, Ethan runs a hand through his hair and sucks his teeth. “I might have left something behind on that last hunt,” he says. “And when that happens, people tend to talk about it.”

_ “We’re on the line with Morgan Hines, one of the campers who was there with the deceased that night. They’ve been in the hospital until now and have agreed to tell us anything they can remember, apparently they want to give us a, uh, a warning.” _

_ “Oh, great.” _

_ “Morgan, hi, can you hear me?” _

_ “Hey guys, yeah, I’m on.” _

The radio is tinny, the call on the line even worse so, but even through the static Ethan can recognize that voice. It calls forth memories of the hunt two nights ago, and he nearly sneers at remembering who this is. They had yelled profanities up at him with a sort of angry terror, and the voice is characteristic in its bushwhack drawl. The one who wielded the carving knife, who had cut him and made him bleed. His wound is gone by now but Ethan still holds the grudge from it. He slides a hand down his side in a phantom pain and glares at the radio speakers. Mark notices.

“You know, I actually know that guy,” he says, and his tone is… off. Redolent. “They don’t seem the type for quick thinking, you must have been real unlucky with that one.”

Ethan fights the urge to roll his eyes but lets his haunches drop, easing up in the realization that there’s little he can do from where he sits. “You know them?”

Mark nods. “From the butcher’s, you might even recognize them if you saw 'em.”

_ “You guys keep talking about a bear as if you’re oh so sure it was an animal.” _

_ “Well it wasn’t a person.” _

_ “No, no, what came into our camp that night was not a person, I’m not saying that. But it was no animal that any of us have ever,  _ ever _ seen. This thing was a monster.” _

Though Mark likely meant for it to be said under his breath, Ethan still hears the man scoff lightly and say, “Monster, god, that’s so harsh.” He stares at Mark’s back, turned to pile up their clothes along the couch cushions, and thinks him very wrong. Ethan wouldn’t claim it a harsh description, not over something so true.

_ “No ma’am, I’ll tell you what it was—” _

_ “You know what it is?” _

_ “—and then you’ll believe me when I say this thing didn’t just attack  _ us, _ oh no. I have full belief that all those disappearances? Up in those mountains? It’s not just stupid people getting lost or falling from their faulty equipment like people’ll have you think. It’s this monster getting them, it’s responsible for all of them.” _

_ “Well that’s a heavy claim, I… okay, yeah we’re getting the okay. Go ahead then.” _

_ “Let’s hear it.” _

_ “Everyone keeps telling me I was too scared to remember right, you know, but I ain’t crazy, I saw it clear as day. Berk shone her flashlight up at it soon as we started hearing the forest move around us, just in time to see the fucker—excuse my language—but right then we saw it grab onto Peters. And hell, I wish it had been a bear, maybe then I woulda known what to do. But no, this thing looked like something out of a nightmare. Black fur and a head that was just a skull. And it was a deer’s skull, the weirdest thing of it all, with these antlers that were just huge. Everything about it was huge, it stood on two legs and its arms were long, with these claws that… sorry, that got Peters real bad real fast. I looked into its eyes and saw death, and then it called out into the trees and— it cried like a, like a banshee.” _

_ “What… What are you describing sir? A banshee?” _

_ “No. I am certain that what attacked us that night, was a wendigo.” _

There’s an uncomfortable silence not only on the radio but also in the house. Mark has stopped fussing with the laundry, paused in the middle of folding a pair of pants, and Ethan meets his frown with one of his own. Then the electrical voice returns.

_ “You claim you were attacked by a— a vicious mountain spirit? The myth we tell our kids to keep them out of trouble, that’s what you’re saying you encountered.” _

_ “Now you don’t gotta use that tone alright, I know it sounds, I do, and if I hadn’t seen that thing with my own two eyes you bet I’d be yelling bear louder than you are, but ma’am… this was definitely not a bear.” _

He switches off the radio. He’s heard enough. Enough to know he needs to be that much more careful during his midnight stints. Four years is almost too long for Ethan to stay in one place, people start getting suspicious. And now—

“When you said you left something behind,” Mark says, starts to make his way over to the table. He looks worried. “I didn’t think you meant… I mean, I can’t believe you actually left anyone alive.”

It’s humiliating, in a way. Ethan rubs a hand over his face and shakes his head. He says, surprised, “I can’t believe they know what I am,” and accepts the warm palm on his shoulder. They take the time to sit in the house gone quiet.

It’s late and neither should be awake, yet it’s difficult for Ethan to settle when he can clearly tell how deep in anxiety Mark is beside him. The man can’t sit still, keeps tossing and turning every few minutes with an uncomfortable grunt, and now Ethan can see, in the darkness, Mark blankly staring up at the ceiling while chewing on his lip, the barest of creases between his brows. Ethan’s heart is in his throat with nervous anticipation, yet with daylight inhibitions down perhaps this is his chance to understand. He’ll ask now.

“What’s on your mind?”

He doesn’t think he’ll get a response at first, Mark keeps silent for too long. It irritates him somewhat to be kept in the dark by someone who he holds no secrets from and Ethan opens his mouth to ask again, ready now to hear the reason his companion has been so incredibly cagey recently, his behavior unusual in the most worrisome of ways. Mark beats him to it. He says, soft, “I want… I want to be like you,” and the air catches in Ethan’s lungs.

“What?” he chokes out. “The hell did you just say?”

Mark chuckles and it isn’t a happy sound. He turns on his side, facing Ethan with his eyes half-lidded in the exhaustion of a late night, and Ethan just wishes that the ideas roiling through his head are not true wants but instead are the ramblings of a dreamer. Mark continues, however, saying with an edge of doubt, “You’re acting surprised.”

“Of course I— Mark, you can’t ask for this.”

“I don’t have to ask, not from you.”

Ethan clenches his jaw on the rest of his argument. Mark hadn’t said it with any bite, rather a steady inflection as if he was relaying a fact. Which, Ethan is unfairly upset to admit, he is. Unlike the myths of bites and scratches the only thing one needs to turn a wendigo themselves is, well, to cannibalize.

Namely, to cannibalize in one’s last attempts at surviving an endless winter, terrified and alone and willing to do the most inhuman act of all just to selfishly stay alive.

And Mark understands this, Ethan is well aware, but still he finds the need to point out, “Do you even realize how many people you’ll have to kill? How many you’ll have to eat? To  _ eat, _ Mark.”

“I  _ know _ what you have to do, I already know—”

“You also know I didn’t choose the way I am, not purposefully, and I never would have,” Ethan says and it comes out strained. A wind blows outside and rocks the house, creaking old wood and howling against glass, and to Ethan’s ears the sound is a cry. Either the mountain’s or his own. “If I’d known… I would have let myself die. I wouldn’t have chosen this.” He swallows around a thickness in his throat. “How can you?”

Mark says, “I thought you’d accepted what you are,” and completely avoids the question.

It’s a route he hadn’t meant to turn down, but Ethan gets defensive. “I mean yeah, I have,” he pushes up on his elbow to look down at Mark, feeling pressed too close by the sheets and pillow against his face. He scoffs, “But it took decades, and every night up until—god what, the last five years? It was like I was fighting with myself. And that first turn is the worst, Mark I don’t want you to have to go through that. It hurts, your entire body is morphing into something completely different and it is… just the worst pain I’ve ever felt.”

Mark looks away and says, “I think it’ll be worth it.” He’s calm, serene despite Ethan’s trying ramblings, and somewhere he doesn’t want to think too hard about Ethan can tell this is the face of someone set in their decision.

It doesn’t connect in Ethan’s brain, the reasons for this desire to be something so awful. He’s too worried for Mark, having firsthand experience in just what this stupid, ridiculous man wants to be, the troubles he would have to face. Ethan would rather have Mark keep his humanity.

“What could be worth that?”

Mark meets his eyes again, and there is a split second before he opens his mouth where Ethan has a feeling he knows what is about to be said. Because, like Mark, he too has begun to worry of what they’ll do the older Mark grows. The man says, “You don’t age anymore, and I… I do. And it may seem selfish but I want what you have, so that I can stay with you. Forever.”

Ethan might love him. The thought burns him from the inside.

“You would take innocent lives for that,” Ethan says, doesn’t ask, reaffirming what’s already been proven true.

Mark is silent for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “I’ve already said that I’m not asking this from you but— but if I can show you that I don’t have an issue with it, will you do one thing for me?”

“Mark…”

“Will you?” He hooks a leg around the back of Ethan’s knee still under the bedcovers and Ethan does nothing but fall into the touch there.

So he nods. “Of course I will,” he murmurs. “Although I’m worried about what you have in mind.”

“I want you to be the one to take me up the mountain.”

Ethan frowns. “You don’t mean by yourself.”

Mark only shrugs one shoulder, a soft shifting of the sheets and he quirks one corner of his mouth up in a half-smile, remorseful. “I’ll find others,” he says and Ethan resettles closer, rebuttal already on the tip of his tongue.

“I’ve told you the story of my turning. I was lucky, I got stranded with other people who were there when I needed to survive. What you’re saying— Mark if I bring you up the mountain alone, that’s— you’re just asking to die.” He pauses, trying to hold back the stinging of tears behind his eyes. Then, he moves before his body can ask permission and reaches out to lay a hand on Mark’s cheek, not pressing nor holding, but keeping it there. He needs him to understand, dips his head to meet Mark’s eye and turns his brows up in distress. His voice cracks on the second word when he whispers, “You’ll die, Mark. I’ll end up killing you.”

Mark takes his wrist in hand to hold it there, turns to press his lips against Ethan’s palm, a dry kiss. He seems not at all concerned, has a small smile when he says, “And then you’ll bury me in the snow.”

It’s not a traditional invitation, but everything about this moment screams at him to take this chance, before it truly is forever a memory. Ethan swipes his thumb up over Mark’s cheekbone and closes the bare distance between them, capturing those lips under his own in a kiss that holds impossibly more purpose than the one that still tickles his palm. However not one second of it is spawned in joy or pleasure. It tastes mournful, like a foresought tragedy. Twin trails of tears meet and smear against Ethan’s cheeks, and he’s not sure when he started crying but it’s a reassurance that he is not alone.

“You’re insane,” he says once separated, a meager inch of charged air between them, noses brushing. He sniffles and wipes at the tears before they have a chance to dry tacky on his face. “You have so much hope that this’ll end well, all to turn into an  _ actual _ monster.” His amused disbelief is palpable. “Certifiably insane.”

Mark’s lips are a bit chapped with the icy season’s debut, he can feel as much when the man initiates this time, kissing him once, twice before murmuring, “Don’t call it hope.”

He hums against his mouth. “Why?”

“To hope… that word has a feeling to it that I don’t like,” he says. “It acts like there’s a possibility that I’ll fail. I don’t  _ hope _ that it’ll end well, I’m certain of it. If I’m certain, that denies any failure.”

Ethan has come to learn that he needs not to fear anything anymore. The shadows and noises in the dark that once haunted him as a child no longer cause his heart to race or his palms to sweat, frivolous to bite your thumb over imaginations of monsters once you’ve become the monster itself. Therefore something can be said about the cold sinking feeling in his gut.

Mark… Mark terrifies him.

Can one who is disillusioned enough to vie certainty over an improbable outcome end up changing said outcome, through sheer force of will? Or is ability a mere sham, and this agreement isn’t a call to action but rather just Ethan sending Mark to an early grave.

He shakes the thoughts away and they fall like sand to the back of his mind, sticking to everything and quite noticeable but altogether too small to discern the whole.

He’s done for the night, not terribly keen on testing the argument that’s sure to spring up the further he drags the conversation out. Ethan would much rather follow the lead of his heavy eyelids, blinks becoming slow in the warmth of a chest pressed against his own. He says, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” and tosses an arm over Mark’s shoulder, a calming rest.

Mark sighs yet presses another dry kiss to Ethan’s jaw. “I’m certain of it.”

It isn’t long before Ethan understands, with simultaneous sinking disbelief and excited apprehension, what Mark had meant by showing his acceptance of taking a life. Perhaps it should alert him to the morality of his chosen companion, how easily such decision was made, but would it not be unfairly hypocritical of him to judge the man for something he himself has done for decades? Ethan does not wallow in guilt when he comes home slicked with the blood of another; he guesses any arguments he prepares will not land with Mark, who has lived with the death for too long.

The front door opens downstairs, and Ethan immediately scents a stranger alongside the familiar pinewood dress of Mark returning from town. His teeth feel too sharp.

It could have been that Mark was fated to turn from the beginning, the moment he allowed such a monster into his home. A possibility that he would have never known, and now cannot dream to change.

“Ethan?” Mark calls up through the house, and he takes a shaky breath before heading down to meet him.

Mark has the lavender somewhere in the pockets of his jeans or coat, and though it is an awful smell that he wants to stay far back from it tears down all doubt, meeting Mark’s eyes. He didn’t bring this stranger into the home only for a nice honest get together. This is a start, and Ethan might be proud.

He recognizes the person beside Mark, barely, has seen them briefly during the times he used to accompany the man on his errands. They’re taller than either of them, older too, with a fading hairline and a crooked nose, an easygoing grin on their face and no sense of what’s to come. He thinks their name might be Martin or Mitchell, something along those lines. Ethan isn’t sure if the fact that he knows them will make this easier or not, but he’s about to find out.

He’s absolutely starving.

Ethan stops halfway inside the foyer, the herbal aura a barrier he doesn’t yearn to cross. “I didn’t realize we were having company,” he says as if the tension isn’t there. He mimics a conversational laugh. “Thought you went into town for groceries, Mark.”

“Yeah, I stopped at the butcher’s and you know I just happened to catch Morgan here before they were leaving for the day,” Mark pats the guy’s back and they raise a hand in hello, and  _ oh. _

Mark is dangling this person right in front of him.

“Oh yeah?”

Morgan shrugs. “I was able to get him to take a few of the good cuts for you two, on the house,” they say and Ethan mirrors the polite smile almost on autopilot, unable to help himself from focusing on the rush of blood pulsing through their veins. It’s almost loud enough to cover the voice that sounds so much clearer without the filter of a radio frequency. “He kept mentioning his companion, and I realized no one has seen you come down in a while.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s been difficult—”

“I invited them for dinner,” Mark cuts in, shuffling the canvas bags both in his hands and slung over his shoulders. “So I’m gonna set these down, start that.” He shoots Ethan a rather purposeful look, and Ethan would be remiss not to understand.

He plugs his nose best he can when Mark passes him with the lavender trailing behind, yet once he’s left in the room alone with their guest a dark intent falls over him. Morgan is completely unaware, and it boils his blood at the reminder that they were able to slip away from him that night. No longer.

“Hi,” Ethan steps forward with every ounce of his composure on keeping this human form just long enough to get closer, to make sure he has them in his grasp before divulging his ambush.

Morgan reaches out for a handshake and says, “Hey, good to see you again man,” and Ethan takes the opening for what it is. He meets them halfway and the moment their hands fit together Ethan can’t keep it at bay. He can feel himself turning. It’s a quick process, a mere seconds ticking by while this unfortunate folk watches him with delicious fear in their beady eyes.

His fingers go first, dark and black skin, the nails elongating and forming into sharp talons that sink into the forearm underneath them, and Ethan hears only the pained screams follow. It drowns out the hollow cracking sounds of his bones as they twist and bend and reinvent his new body, legs shifting to a cervine state, short coarse black furs sprouting from his skin. Terrifyingly his face melts away, features and skin and muscle bleeding off until only bone remains, and the skull begins to stretch. It shapes itself into a long and pointed snout, a deer skull if ever had seen one before, deep black eye sockets and teeth too large and sharp to belong to anything other than a pure monster. With the skull comes a set of antlers, a huge branching system curving to a solid point and scratching against the ceiling. In the blink of an eye Ethan has lost his humanity, breathing heavy with the urge to attack. He stands tall, has grown to fill the room, and his grip on Morgan has tightened, claws shredding their arm and spilling sweet poignant lines of blood onto the foyer floor.

In the very back of his mind Ethan hears soft footsteps behind him, and he knows Mark is still there, somewhere in the room with sprigs of lavender in his pockets keeping the monster away from his own person, keeping him focused solely on the prey in his sights. Ethan is not afraid of letting him watch—he wants him to. He wants Mark to see what he’s chosen to become.

Those thoughts are gone the moment Morgan begins to beg for their life.

“No! No please, please, don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I’m sorry I cut you, I’m sorry I talked about you just please let me go! Oh fucking hell please I didn’t know!” They scrabble in his grip, the hand not caught between claws tight around Ethan’s wrist, trying desperately to pull free. The whites of their eyes are bright and terrified, and they dart over his face before finding Mark behind him. “Mark! Help me, please what the hell is this! Did you know about this you bastard? Help! I can’t die like this, oh god, I don’t want to die! Please, God!”

Ethan growls, a sound that rumbles deep and echoed in an empty skeleton, yet still is able to hear Mark’s, “I’m sorry you trusted me,” come from near the foot of the staircase. Cold, raw. Perhaps he is in fact prepared to witness an acquaintance die by a lover’s hand.

While Morgan’s words are a delight to hear, Ethan isn’t one to savor. He hasn’t eaten in days, hasn’t had an actual filling meal in a week, and here he holds the most vulnerable prey he’s ever had the pleasure of killing—one delivered to him personally, no energy expended on hunting them down in the trees. He’ll have to remember to thank Mark later.

The squeaky pleadings turn to sobs as Ethan opens his maw, aiming not to draw this out any longer than he already has. He positions himself around their head, canines scraping and cutting their scalp under thin hair. With a sickening crunch and an abruptly silenced wail he snaps his jaw shut, cracking the spine and shattering the skull. They fall limp, and Ethan lets the body tumble in a heap on the hardwood. He lets out a cry claiming a successful hunt, a rasping shriek filled with staccato bursts of high-pitched clicking, one that shakes the walls of the house with its timbre. It dies out, and Ethan drops close to his victim.

Then, he has his fill.

He starts with opening the stomach, rooting around inside for protein-rich organs with the end of his snout while his arms make quick work on dismembering. It’s a messy process, a monstrous feast, but as he bites down and swallows pieces of raw fat and muscle Ethan can feel the steady satiation of that all encompassing hunger. A relief in more ways than one.

He destroys the corpse quickly and completely. The wendigo inside him calms to a quiet once all he’s left to stare at is a puddle of drying blood on the floor. Ethan blinks and sits back on his haunches, body much less cervine than his outburst. His bare skin is smeared red, and though he mimics a human once more he still has the strong thought to lick himself clean, to not waste a single drop. He doesn’t, though, can’t quite bring himself to move after the effort of changing between forms in such a short window.

A hand on his shoulder startles him, and Mark asks, “How are you?”

The overpowering flowery stench surrounds him in a cloud of nausea, and Ethan curls his lip in disgust. “You still have lavender on you,” he points out, trying not to retch. A waste it would be to lose his dinner so soon.

He feels more than sees Mark’s absence, a cold gap at his side, and what is likely a few minutes draws by in hours, the ringing in his head high-pitched and continuous. When Mark returns it is without the herb that has kept the wendigo from fronting.

“Hey.”

Ethan blindly turns to the voice and noses at the sternum he finds there, not knowing when he had closed his eyes but allowing his other senses to guide him. When Mark speaks Ethan can feel his chest rumble but he doesn’t listen to the words, thinks they might just be frivolous comfort. The shirt he presses his face into is soft and warm, yet it isn’t what he seeks; Ethan effortlessly pulls Mark down until he’s knelt on the floor as well and fixates on the man’s uncovered pulse point, deafeningly loud and close. His lips graze it first, a shiver and a noise beneath him, before he mouths at it with more teeth than anything else. They catch and instincts push Ethan to bite down with a different kind of intent behind it, something of a predatory desire.

“Ethan.”

He’s not breaking skin, but he wants to. “What?” he mumbles and bites down on the collarbone, hard enough for Mark to jump back.

“Fuck!” he curses and reaches up to his neck. The shout brings Ethan out of it that much more, and he winces when Mark pulls his hand away to see a few spatters of blood on his palm, four pinpricks around his collar bright red. “Are you still hungry?”

Ethan inhales shakily. “No, sorry,” he says and shakes his head. He’s still coming back down. “Sorry, I’m fine.”

Thankfully, expectedly, Mark believes him. He helps Ethan up off the cold floor by his elbows, saying, “Let’s wash up.” They leave Ethan’s clothes, ripped to shreds beyond repair in the middle of the room, behind. One more thing to deal with at a later time.

Steam is thick in the bathroom as the water runs hot from the shower head. Ethan steps underneath the spray beside Mark and hisses at the immediate burn against his frozen skin, before he adjusts. He dips his head down to wet his hair, staring as the ceramic tub floor turns pink and washes the lost blood down the drain. Spots of soap suds join the rivulets a few seconds before the damp fabric of a washcloth touches across his shoulder blades.

“I don’t have blood on my back,” says Ethan petulantly, leaning into it and pushing the hair back from his face.

Mark laughs lightly. “Then turn around.”

He does, and lets the man wash the sticky blood from his chest, neck, gently from his face. Ethan can’t help to look at Mark standing with a desirable suggestion before him, take him in. Can't help to imagine  _ taking him _ after, like a sick arousal.

“Do you find it odd,” Mark says and shifts closer while he sets the cloth away, “that I think watching you kill was incredibly attractive?” His voice pitches low, almost gravelly, a tone Ethan only hears in the mornings yet is paired with something very new and very intriguing.

Ethan reaches out and touches Mark’s hip. “You’re fucking crazy,” he laughs out, and it’s true. Of all the townsfolk living in the area it should not be a surprise that Ethan came to live with Mark; the man is just psychopathic enough to warrant a homicidal, cannibalistic creature to stay in his home, to befriend it. It works, because Ethan is no better himself. “I love that.”

Predictably, they don’t get any further into cleaning each other once Ethan rinses the soap off his body, too distracted by the inevitable and impatient with the slowly ramping air. It’s Ethan who moves first, unable to avoid the heady scent of arousal even over the soft vanilla wash. A wildly different kind of hunger. He presses Mark back against the slick wall carefully, eyeing the man for any hesitation but he simply nods his agreement. Ethan tries not to crack the tile, moves his hands to curve around bare hipbones and digs blunt fingertips into the skin and muscle there, and dips forward to reclaim those parted lips in a kiss.

It’s completely unlike the night before, no longer tainted by a sorrowful conversation and a nervous heartbeat. The pleasure that hadn’t been present then is certainly not lacking now, Ethan’s nearly dizzy with it. Mark’s mouth is hot and his hands come to a rest around Ethan’s neck, fingers threading through wet hair as best they can. It’s disappointingly quiet besides the shower spray and slight sounds of mouths moving together, and Ethan barely bites down on Mark’s bottom lip and drags it out between his teeth, wanting to hear  _ something. _ Mark only shudders and breathes heavier, so Ethan presses his thigh between the man’s legs and licks into his mouth, tonguing at the roof; Mark delightfully whines, bucking into the pressure at his groin.

A prize. The spoils only Ethan gets to see.

The hand he’s kept on Mark’s hip is steadily trailing lower when Mark finally vocalizes a moan, yet Ethan has barely time to bathe in the sound before the man breaks their kiss. He’s nearly about to ask the issue when Mark sighs, “Please take me to bed,” against his lips, and Ethan himself moans at the words. Who is he to deny such a pleasant request?

It is with an unsettled heart that Ethan wakes to the bright sun. It’s a late morning light, the sky outside a clear icy blue with promises of an overnight blizzard coming down from the northern line, and from his place stretched out on his side Ethan takes in the room. Their towels are thrown on the floor, damp still in the cold air, and though there had been moments his nails had grown curved and sharp there doesn’t seem to be as much damage as he’d expected. A deep gouge in the wall by the dresser is all he sees, plaster peppered on the floor below and strips of wallpaper peeling off their place. It’s annoying, knowing he should have reared back and calmed down last night, yet Ethan figures it’s a better alternative than tearing into Mark himself. Mark’s hips definitely fared better, only bruising along the bones. Ethan hadn’t set out to leave any marks originally, but with his strength it had been difficult to avoid doing so. Besides, he’ll admit seeing the mottled purple fingerprints and bruises right along the inside of Mark’s thighs sent his head spinning. It was like a claim. Ethan reddens suddenly and glances to the man still beside him, all warm body and bare skin.

Mark is already awake, sitting halfway propped up in the bed with his back against the pillows, staring at the opposite wall with a faraway look in his eyes. He hasn’t noticed him just yet, and Ethan takes this time simply to look, ingrain his image that much more in his mind. Mark is unarguably handsome; dark hair, dark eyes, a smile and a laugh that pulls at the crows feet and turns his eyes into half-moons. Broad, toned, a scar on his abdomen where the skin is pale and tight. And things one can’t see, the level of care he holds, how safe Ethan feels here. He really does love him, and once again that thought is a painful one, especially in this moment.

He’s hopeful, but isn’t certain, that he’ll see Mark again after this day.

“Good morning.”

Maybe he says it too soft, for Mark doesn’t so much as blink at his words. Ethan pushes his lips into a thin line and draws his hand from the pale mattress to land on Mark’s knee still under the bedcovers. “Mark?”

Said man inhales sharply as if startled and his eyes clear of such an absent glaze. “Huh?” he asks smartly, rubbing at his face with one hand while the other covers Ethan’s still on his leg. “Sorry, morning.”

“You alright?”

“Yes, just… Just thinking.”

A stirring in his chest, he tries to play it off. “Please tell me you’re rethinking this.”

Mark brings Ethan’s hand up to his mouth and kisses the knuckles. An expert at rerouting a dialogue, he says, “I have the ending to that song in my head, if I can remember I’ll write it down later but,” and he pauses, and Ethan sits up to face him better. “Do you want to hear the story now?”

Right. The piece Mark had been working on, untitled still though Ethan remembers the way it had sounded, even when unfinished. He’d nearly forgotten about the story, teased in the evening like a sin. Of course he wants to hear it.

“Of course I want to hear it.”

And Mark begins to talk of something too familiar to halt the despondent turns in his throat.

“Like I said before, the song is about a mountain. Not a particular one, not these ones, but just  _ a _ mountain. The subject, the man, he has a very specific relationship with it, with nature in general. He… he wants to live atop it, away from all of those that stay down on the forest floor, who mock him for being too rash and tell him what he’s doing is stupid, just a bad idea altogether. But he doesn’t listen,” and here Mark sighs a little shakily, no longer meeting Ethan’s eye and he doesn’t try to force him to talk, understanding too well. Ethan drapes an arm over Mark’s shoulder in an attempt at comfort.

It seems to help.

Mark continues, “He doesn’t listen, because he trusts that he knows what he’s doing, and because he feels safe on the mountain. He’s never had a dangerous experience and it misdirects him terribly. His views are flawed, and once he’s made his home up there it becomes apparent that he should have listened to those that had been kind enough to warn him.

“A storm rolls through, a true white-out and all the man has for shelter is this tent, thin and protected only with the— the  _ hope _ that the mountain doesn’t betray him. He starts to freeze, barely able to move, and he has no food, no water. It was a mistake that wasn’t planned correctly and now he realizes that he will die here, alone and afraid and mocked from back home. He goes to sleep with a prayer on his lips.”

There’s another pause, but this time Ethan can tell it isn’t out of nerves from shedding your heart, rather from where the slow dip in the song pairs to this part of the story. If he remembers correctly, it does not turn worse.

“A miracle,” Mark says. “The man wakes up the next morning feeling fine, like he hasn’t yet gone through the pain of the storm. But there is  _ something _ different, deep in his chest, and he asks the mountain what happened. It answers him, tells him that it’s the one that saved him. It saw so much potential in him, how much he fought to survive until exhaustion eventually wore him down, that it couldn’t let him die. It fueled him from the inside, gave him some of its power, and though the man will never be the same he thinks, you know, at least he’s alive. The mountain has turned him dangerous yet capable, and he feels that safety once more, the one he always knew he’d find up there, and it was everything he needed in order to keep going.”

There’s a clear final note there, and Ethan blinks out of the reverie that has kept him tuned in to Mark’s telling of the story, so detailed and obvious and comprehensive. He can’t believe he had ever been surprised.

“How long?” he asks. “How long have you been thinking about— wanting this?”

“A few months now. I didn’t know how to approach it.”

Ethan bites his lip. “Well, I’m sure the piece sounds great. Can I hear it today?” It’s a trap, but Mark is much smarter than that. The man grins like normal, like he hadn’t just spilled his soul out into the world, and throws off the sheet to stand and stretch. He turns back and stares down at Ethan over his shoulder.

“How about I play it when I get back?”

All Ethan can do is agree.

He wishes he could say that the afternoon passes by as any other, but that would only be his wishful thinking dragging him along. It doesn’t, because there’s a very clear ending on the horizon, one they disagree upon the genre of, and while Mark is apprehensive for reasons of excitement and adventure Ethan feels weighted by a constant thrumming anxiety. He doesn’t feel well, and that creates this tension he does not want.

From an outsider’s eye the events aren’t unusual. Mark makes himself a large lunch, having skipped the dinner he’d mentioned last night and waking too late to grab a morning meal. It’s funny, watching him eat and dulling the hunger pains that have surely made themselves known after a day gone between meals, and Ethan wonders about later, when Mark will feel these same pains without anything around to sate them. He doubts the man knows what he’s getting himself into, but at least he will not head up into the wilderness already starving. It will give him more of a chance to find what he needs.

Mark does not waste any time. He washes his plate, dries his hands on the dish towel, and raises an eyebrow over at Ethan. “You ready to go?”

Not particularly, he’s not.

“Sure,” Ethan relents, and stands up.

It’s already starting to snow again, lightly and calm without a wind to stir the flurries into a mess just yet, and as they step out the back of the old house flakes land like stars in Mark’s hair ahead of him. They trudge through the back yard, a short expanse of open land that bleeds into the thick evergreens surrounding. Stepping around piles of rusted car parts and bicycle wheels, old boxes, broken buckets, a tattered lampshade and other large pieces of junk neither have the desire to clean up, all covered in ice and a layer of snow. Past the shed, which holds the small growths of lavender and, oh, only now does it click as to why Mark had been less than concerned about the lack of any new blooms. He wouldn’t need to protect himself from something he is as well.

The differences between them are comparable as they walk through the trees. Ethan, decades under his skin of living life as a learned hunter going after the most intelligent prey, walks softly through the snow and dead underbrush. He knows where to avoid stepping, can sense the pressure of the ground and where each snapping twig and slick leaves and nettles lie under his sight. Mark, in contrast, is a barge. He doesn’t care of the noise he makes, holding on to the trunks of trees and scuffing snow up with the toes of his boots, spraying flakes loudly across the scraggly bushes. He’s a walking target if ever there was one. Ethan doesn’t point it out but does muse over how quickly the man will learn to move in silence.

They don’t make it very far into the dimming light of the dusken woods before something changes. Mark stops walking abruptly and shivers, he can see the man’s breath clouding in the air, and turns to face him. His mouth is pinched and he only meets Ethan’s eye after a moment of deliberation behind that expression. Ethan lifts his chin and waits, daring him to say something he expects will ruin this.

“I don’t think you should come with me.”

It takes him a moment to discern what Mark just said, unwilling to believe he would all of a sudden decide to walk the rest alone. He flares his nostrils in annoyance. “We already agreed that—”

“No,” Mark cuts him off unbothered with a raise of one hand, palm down in the same motion one calms an animal. “Even if… even if you leave immediately after dropping me up there it’s not going to be worth my time. I can’t have you knowing where I am.”

“What— Why?” Ethan asks despite knowing exactly what Mark means. The man doesn’t want him to know, just in case Ethan has the snap decision to head up there and save him himself. It’s a smart move, he’ll admit, but still it doesn’t sit right with him. He crosses his arms over his chest and glares.

Mark seems to slump, losing the tension held throughout the walk, and drags a hand down his face. “You know why,” he says and steps forward into Ethan’s space, letting his hands come to rest on Ethan’s shoulders and meeting his stare with a sad one of his own. He tries to make light of the coming night, minutely swaying the two of them in the affect of a dance, and Ethan doesn’t try to stop him or the smile tugging at his lips. “I need to do this alone, love.”

The name warms him, but he still needs to try just once more, here and now before Mark slips away from him into the never ending trees, before he has to retrace their steps alone. He points out, “I can just follow your scent.”

Mark clenches his jaw and his eyebrows turn up in regret and unease. “You have to promise not to,” he says and his voice cracks, sounds like he’s trying desperately not to cry. His fingers tighten on Ethan’s shoulders and his words tighten around Ethan’s heart. “If you can wait long enough for the storm to hit then you won’t even be able to find my scent in all of it. That should make it easier to stay home.”

Home. The house nestled away from the bustle of town, the one sat withering and overgrown in the middle of the wooded mountainside. It’s been his shelter for the last four years and with luck it will stay his shelter for many more to come. He has adapted to it, has developed a routine that he doesn’t feel the need to stray from, but it doesn’t work alone. It’s the house that he shares with Mark, who graciously allows him to stay there; in the beginning he hadn’t thought he would stay longer than the few days’ recovery time, yet with the man’s continued insistence that he come back and the casual inclusion of him in everything he did, it had made it difficult to tell him no. They’ve grown closer there, and Ethan doesn’t want to lose that so soon. It isn’t a home without Mark.

But, he keeps that to himself. Something he can have during this interim.

Ethan’s resolve isn’t at all supported by a strong foundation, and it crumbles beneath him. He holds on by wrapping his arms around Mark’s waist, finally reciprocating the touch. Too late.

“You’re smart enough to make it back alive,” he says, tone thick. “Don’t kill yourself up there. If you don’t find anyone you figure out a way to make it back. I’m not willing to lose you because you’re being an idiot.”

Mark’s smile does not match his eyes. “I’m always an idiot,” he says and the accompanying laugh sounds forced. He starts to lean away, letting his hands drop from Ethan’s shoulders and urges, “Now, come on, I gotta get up there.”

“Kiss me before you go.” He says it too fast, too desperate, keeps his arms too clingy around Mark, but he doesn’t take it back. Mark is a beauty, and he leans into him so they can meet in the middle, under the shelter of the pines from the falling snow above.

The moment doesn’t last as long as he wishes it would. Mark is stubborn and adamant he leaves, gains a good amount of distance before it falls too dark to meander through the woods. Ethan has to let him go, he knows, and he eventually does so. He takes his hands back reluctantly, holding in a deep sigh and an opinion.

“I’ll see you in a few days,” Mark says lowly, certain of his return home as if this outing is just another day into town. It’s not, but Ethan will let him think that now. Easier.

Ethan grins lopsided and promises, “I’ll be waiting for you.”

He stands in the same spot while he watches Mark hike away from him, between a hollow fallen log and a low-hanging branch whose dark nettles whisper in the wind threading amongst the trees. He stands until he can no longer see his companion, a shadow in the bare forest that disappears in a blink. An involuntary set of tears drip from his chin, and Ethan sniffs and wipes them away. He’ll head home now— he bites back that thought.

He’ll head to the house now. His home is walking away from him.

It’s fully dark by the time the soles of his boots crunch under icy gravel, and even in the cold he wipes at the sweat that’s beaded at his brow over the day. He stops and looks up at a closed door and windows that have no one behind them.

Ethan stands in front of a house.

**Author's Note:**

> cw for cannibalism, both referenced and explicit (seriously, like I'm all for some dark fic but as I was writing this shit even I had to stop for a breather and say "what the fuck" a few times before I could come back to it. It was a pretty gruesome scene I thought)
> 
> Some cultures believe that just being around a wendigo can either turn a human into one or make them want to become one themselves, which is presented here even though it isn't said outright, because it's Ethan's pov and he doesn't know that yet! Which is the main reason Mark insists on wanting to be one, besides the whole being in love with a monster thing
> 
> I do feel like this could be polished up a bit more?? But alas, I've worked on this for too long and I'm happy with how it turned out! Hope you enjoyed
> 
> Last thing, I also made a [pin board](https://www.pinterest.com/dylarks/to-me-evergreen/) for this fic, it's got some illustrations of the traditional wendigo (no until dawn or spn ones here!) if you wanna check it out!


End file.
